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June 15, 2009 2:01 PM   Subscribe

What's the best tool for making Facebook quizzes?

So, I have a book coming out. (Yay me; I'll post on Projects when the time comes.) The bad news: A lot of material got cut for space reasons. The good news: This gives me lots of material to to re-purpose for the book's web site.

One of the things that got cut was a fun little quiz-like inventory that helped the reader evaluate his or her situation with regard to the topic of the book. (Sorry to be vague, I just want to be clear that this isn't a self-referential post about the book.) I've been planning to put this on the web site, but it occurred to me today that it might be even more fun as a Facebook Quiz, with the added benefit of perhaps spreading the word around a little more widely.

I've looked a little bit at FB quiz makers. There seem to be a bunch, all with lackluster ratings, and none that seem too impressive. Does anyone have any particular recommendations? (And if your recommendation is to avoid FB quizzes, that's fine too, but I'd be interested in hearing a) why and b) alternative suggestions.

Thanks!
posted by j-dawg to Computers & Internet (8 answers total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
Mmmm to disagree with M.C. Lo-Carb!, facebook quizzes are pretty popular with my age group- roughly 17-23. I would guess they are even more popular with younger age groups. If you're targeting that age group, a facebook quiz is probably a good idea (I should caution that this is very much based on a small sample size, and there are probably plenty of populations my age who hate facebook quizzes and see them like MCLC! does).
The only faux pas (and this is my opinion) is publishing the results of every single stupid quiz you take- I skip publishing unless the quiz is entertaining or particularly popular or my result is funny, to avoid having 6 or 7 quiz results in a row clog up my friends' news feeds. That's mostly my personal preference, although I think it isn't uncommon.

Anyway, to be helpful, I'd suggest using a quiz maker that definitely gives you the option to skip publishing, ideally doesn't present a screen asking you to invite friends to take the quiz (although this "feature" is ubiquitous), and doesn't send notifications after you take the quiz asking you to compare your results with friends or whatever. Use decent looking images for the results, too, and make sure the text that goes with the results is typo-free and ideally interesting. Usually longer is better.
posted by MadamM at 3:00 PM on June 15, 2009


And if your recommendation is to avoid FB quizzes, that's fine too, but I'd be interested in hearing a) why and b) alternative suggestions.


OK, to put it more politely than my first (deleted) answer, lots of (apparently older) FB users find those quizzes and other applications extremely annoying, and use scripts or other methods to block them. For instance, were I your FB friend and you published these quizzes, I wouldn't see them in my newsfeed or even on your page.

Instead, you might try what other people do to market themselves and their projects on FB -- post links on your page to your Web site when you have an announcement or book release or other milestone you'd like to promote. If the link appears to be interesting, people will check it out.

Alternatively, you could set up a fan page for your book, and ask your friends and readers to become "fans" thereof. On that page, you could post excerpts or even the material cut for space reasons.
posted by M.C. Lo-Carb! at 4:04 PM on June 15, 2009


I have to agree with M.C. Lo-Carb!

In my opinion, facebook quizzes are the source of all evil.

They are the one thing that will take facebook down. They wll soon be seeing everyone over 23 leaving the site after it becomes unuseable because we have to hear about someone’s favourite Smurf, type of Frog, Pirate name or other such useless crap we are being spammed with. Yes it is spam. It's no different to when people used to ask you to join their Vampire, Werewolf, Mafia gang.

I have a 2 strike policy with these ridiculous things. First time some publishes which Spice Girl they are, I hide the quiz. If they spam me again with which Flintstones character they are most likely to marry, I hide the friend altogether.

This will either leave me with an empty news feed or just the people worth hearing about.
posted by Man_in_staysis at 4:54 PM on June 15, 2009 [1 favorite]


Man_in_staysis, you can still enjoy your friends, even the ones with waaaayyyy too much time on their hands, with this fine greasemonkey script.
posted by M.C. Lo-Carb! at 7:02 PM on June 15, 2009 [1 favorite]


Response by poster: Hmm... well, a couple comments back:

Probably 90% of my FB friends are older than 23 (many much older, like me), and they quiz it up like nobody's business. So I'm not sure it's quite as objectionable to older folks as some of the comments indicate.

Now, I'm not a big fan of the quizzes myself, but that's because so few of them seem useful. The quiz I'm proposing to really is intended as a tool to help someone make decision about making a specific change in their lives that the book is about. I'd like to offer the quiz no matter what; I just thought a FB quiz might be a fun way of doing it that would also help spread the word.

And of course, no one has actually mentioned a quiz making tool they like, either on FB or as an alternative to FB, which was really my primary question. Not that I don't appreciate the other feedback, but whether I'm using FB or not, I still want to link people to this self-evaluation that got cut from the book.

In response to the other suggestion, the book will have both it's own web site and a FB page of its own.
posted by j-dawg at 7:21 PM on June 15, 2009


I can't recommend any quiz-creating apps (none of them look good), but I do think that a facebook quiz is a good idea and likely to be popular. If you're technical at all, it shouldn't be too hard to create your own from scratch, or borrow heavily from one of the general web-based sites that give you a html quiz. If you do go with a facebook helper application, check the licence terms: some of them say that you are giving them licence to the material you use in the quiz.
posted by jacalata at 9:21 PM on June 15, 2009


I'm in the anti-Facebook quiz group and here's why:

1) They have a bad association. I would never be able to take a quiz 'seriously' because of all the ridiculous ones out there. I have an immediate "hide story" reflex when I see a quiz, I don't even take the time to see what kind of quiz it is.

2) Quiz results are generally published for everyone to see, hence the reason so many of them end up in the newsfeed - you say your book is intended to help someone make a specific change in their lives - do you think people would be comfortable having their world know of their results?

With that said, I think a quiz is a wonderful idea. A standalone quiz on a website. A website that could be promoted on Facebook through a group (j-dawgz Life Quiz), fan page (j-dawgz book title), event (I'm releasing a book soon...), a note (this is what my book's about, check this stuff out...here's a link to the quiz site), and my favourite, your status (j-dawg: Check out my quiz - remember to include 'http://' to make the link in your status click-able).

Good luck.
posted by 913 at 1:44 AM on June 16, 2009


I'm 47, and I enjoy some of the Facebook quizzes; others are just stupid. I agree that most of them are poorly created, but OTOH, it's mostly trivial entertainment. My friends and I do not post all our quiz results, and if we do, it's done to say something - a joke, some self-disclosure, something that's actually worth sharing.

My main problem with FB quizzes is that with any of them that have genuine interest or a remotely serious subject, the multiple-choice q-and-a often confounds me. More often than not, none of the options apply and I just choose something at random (it's trivial, it doesn't matter) or else I bail. That's really a problem of the particular quiz, not the quiz concept itself. If you can design your questions and answers to lead people toward thinking about a topic covered in your book, it might be useful.

You might also want to consider the marketing model of that "Real Age" quiz that was going around a few months back. Not to endorse that particular concept, but it certainly generated some buzz and media articles about that web site, health program, whether or not the concept was valid, etc. Attention is what your looking for...
posted by Robert Angelo at 7:28 AM on June 16, 2009


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